| ▲ | breadwinner 6 days ago |
| This seems reasonable. California doesn't want to subsidize the education of the privileged few who qualify as "legacy admission". And Stanford doesn't want to give up the financial support from alumnus. |
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| ▲ | BobaFloutist 6 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Yup. And you can think of legacy admissions as college "whales", people who pay full price for an advantage and subsidize the price for less wealthy students. It's absolutely an imperfect system, but it at least redistributes a little wealth along the way |
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| ▲ | globnomulous 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > alumnus Alumni. Stanford may care most about just that one alumnus, but my suspicion is that they care at least as much about other alumni and alumnae. :) |
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| ▲ | technothrasher 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > Alumni. Often "Alums" nowadays, as Alumni is traditionally male gendered. | | |
| ▲ | peterfirefly 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Alumni if there is even one man. Alumnae if there isn't. Alumnus/alumna for individuals. That's just how Latin works. | | | |
| ▲ | RHSeeger 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't think I've ever heard this. The alumni of the university has always, from my experience, been used to refer to everyone that graduated; gender playing no role at all. | | |
| ▲ | ryao 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Saying “always” based on your experience with a word that is over 2000 years old without knowing the history is a great way to be wrong. In this case, if there is a group of multiple people, the correct word is alumni, unless the entire group is female, when the word becomes alumnae. Alumni is correct even for a hypothetical group with a billion women and 1 man. If there is just 1 person, it is alumnus for a male and alumna for a female. Most universities would use alumni because there is always 1 male in the group and they want to use the plural. A women’s only university would use alumnae. That said, English speakers have a tendency to mispronounce alumni as alumnae, so trying to maintain a minimum understanding of how to use the word correctly might be a losing battle. | |
| ▲ | dcrazy 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s one of those “well actually” things that the Latin nerds would point out. So the Latin nerds who went into college administration decided to change it to be a clearly English derivation. |
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| ▲ | HDThoreaun 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Its not just about money. Having legacies at the school is what makes non legacies want to attend. If applicants didnt care about networking with the rich and powerful theyd go to caltech, the reality is that having connections to powerful people is the main value add undergrad at ivies provides versus upper tier state schools. Why would stanford ever get rid of their main value add? |
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| ▲ | cherryteastain 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | We know this argument does not apply in practice because tons of people want to go to top universities that do not consider legacy like MIT. Outside America, universities that regularly feature in global top 20 lists like Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich and Imperial College London etc also do not do legacies and they also get tons of interest. | |
| ▲ | sahila 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're making big assumptions here regarding students desires to attend stanford. Ignoring everything else though, having two elite universities that cater to merit is better than one just for the sake of doubling the number of students. | | |
| ▲ | HDThoreaun 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > Ignoring everything else though, having two elite universities that cater to merit is better than one just for the sake of doubling the number of students. Not for stanford. Its goals largely boil down to increase the endowment and create a powerful alumni network. Accepting legacies is a great way to accomplish both those things. This is the same reason schools give preference to athletes even though it brings down the schools academics. Competitive athletics requires skills that translate very well to the workplace(grit, teamwork) so successful athletes are likely to become successful corporate workers. |
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| ▲ | musicale 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Interesting point. Elite universities offer a good education, a respected credential, and connections. Stanford is also a startup factory, being (not coincidentally) adjacent to Silicon Valley and containing a business school in addition to the engineering school. | | |
| ▲ | HDThoreaun 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | What does stanford offer undergrads that berkeley doesnt? IMO access to legacies and the larger alumni network is about it. | | |
| ▲ | musicale 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Better faculty to student ratio (1:6 vs. 1:19). Closer proximity to actual Santa Clara (Silicon) Valley (and Google, NVIDIA, etc.) More NCAA championships and Olympic medals. Still leading in "big game" football series (though currently on a losing streak.) More Turing awards. Not as many Nobel prizes - or elements on the periodic table - however. Berkeley (having many more undergrads) also has more alumni. (But note for both schools that good researchers are not necessarily good undergraduate instructors.) | | |
| ▲ | suslik 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > More NCAA championships and Olympic medals. Still leading in "big game" football series (though currently on a losing streak.) As a side note, I always found this obsession with sports to be a fascinating aspect of american culture. Being from an entirely different culture, it’s unclear to me why on earth would anyone give a fuck about this. | | |
| ▲ | musicale 5 days ago | parent [-] | | I have heard that in some countries soccer (aka "football") is a big thing for some reason. Also the Olympics seem to be a big thing every four years, particularly in the country where they are being held; Berkeley and Stanford do pretty well in that competition. | | |
| ▲ | suslik 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Sports can be big in a country, sure, but US is the only country I can recall where sports matters as a criteria to choose a university to go to (as an in op). But just in case - it’s cool, I wasn’t being judgmental. | | |
| ▲ | musicale 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You may be reading too much into the original question, which was simply: > What does stanford offer undergrads that berkeley doesnt? IMO access to legacies and the larger alumni network is about it Non-academic advantages (e.g. athletics programs, student housing, etc.) are still advantages. Berkeley has its own set of non-academic advantages, such as closer proximity and access to San Francisco (via BART). |
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| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | musicale 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Stanford undoubtedly did the math and determined they would lose money overall (gifts are 7% of Stanford's income, tuition and fees 13%). Boo-hoo, rich university loses money. Like the 21% Trump tax on endowment income, etc. Maybe they'll have to fire some useless, non-teaching administrators and build fewer country club dorms and luxury amenities, right? But... Stanford would probably argue that admitting a single less-qualified donor child can cover the financial aid expenses of dozens of qualified students whose parents simply have less money. (Financial aid is 5% of Stanford's budget.) If this is true, California's goal of banning legacy and (especially) donor admits could have an unintended consequence of reducing the number of qualified but non-rich students who will be admitted. But... many gifts are restricted, you say! Buildings. Endowed faculty chairs. Particular research centers and programs. Specialized scholarships. Etc. Nonetheless, Stanford has to balance its budget, and even restricted gifts save money and allow them to shift dollars from one place to another. (Note debt service is 4% of the budget as well.) |
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| ▲ | ghaff 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Universities definitely favor unrestricted gifts. But, to the degree that you make a restricted gift, you can be sure that there's often money shuffling in the background to the degree the gift is substantial. | |
| ▲ | eli_gottlieb 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >But... Stanford would probably argue that admitting a single less-qualified donor child can cover the financial aid expenses of dozens of qualified students whose parents simply have less money. (Financial aid is 5% of Stanford's budget.) Sounds like an argument for taxing the rich, if they've got so much spare money they can carry dozens of other people's kids through school. | |
| ▲ | corimaith 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If rich people stopped going to Stanford, Stanford will loose its reputation in a few generations. | | |
| ▲ | g8oz 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I think it works in the opposite direction. Rich parents basically buy admission for their mediocre offspring at a university made prestigious by the abundance of very intelligent but less wealthy students. |
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| ▲ | ivape 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That 7% from rich people, where does it go? Let’s say the school decides they have enough money without that 7%. They figure out they don’t need to be that rich. Does that mean they can’t do more institutionally or does it mean they can’t do more organizationally (which is just get bigger, more heads, more money)? What does it really mean for them to suddenly become ethical and say they don’t want that blood money anymore? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. It’s a follow the money situation, and it’s important to figure out who is beholden to that 7% when it comes into their system. If we find out it’s the giant cafeteria building, then maybe we settle for a smaller one. But if we find out it’s making certain people fat in the pockets, then you’re on to something. —— Aside, society should really start encouraging the most talented to consider the ethics of institutions they go to. Whether that be Palantir or Stanford. Legacy admissions is just straight unethical, and Stanford students need to protest this. | | |
| ▲ | musicale 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Stanford presumably determined that the loss of donation money would be greater than what they would have to spend to cover financial aid without help from Cal Grants. | | |
| ▲ | ivape 6 days ago | parent [-] | | You are not reading what I'm saying acceptingly. I am suggesting the math they did only helped them conclude they would have less money. It did not lead to a conclusion that they can't keep being an elite institution servicing and creating high level academics at fair prices while still being profitable and growing financially. Very roundabout way of suggesting they are greedy at their core. | | |
| ▲ | musicale 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | "Follow the money" is a good point. Universities spend an enormous amount of money, and it's often hard to see what it's actually being used on. Stanford has so many administrative staff that they built a separate campus for them in Redwood City. https://redwoodcity.stanford.edu | |
| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | musicale 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | edit/correction: 21% was the original proposal but it was reduced to 8% in the final bill that was passed |
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